


It Happens Any Way

by hutchabelle



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Art, Baking, Cloud Watching, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fandom Trumps Hate, Fandom Trumps Hate 2020, Friendship/Love, Happy Ending, Healing, Heavy Angst, Hijacked Peeta Mellark, Hunger Games, Hunger Games Victor Katniss Everdeen, Hunger Games Victor Peeta Mellark, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark Smut, Love, POV Katniss Everdeen, Painting, Pre-Epilogue, Pre-Epilogue Mockingjay, Recovery, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:27:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28716498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hutchabelle/pseuds/hutchabelle
Summary: The trial is over. Katniss is free to return to District 12 but only if accompanied by her fake fiancé, Peeta Mellark. The problem is he’s still recovering, so time spent with him is dangerous, especially if he suffers another hijacking episode. How do the star crossed lovers of District 12 find their way back to each other when all the cards are stacked against them? It happens anyway and any way they try.
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 10
Kudos: 97
Collections: Fandom Trumps Hate 2020





	It Happens Any Way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shannon17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shannon17/gifts).



> In the Before (Pandemic) Times, I offered up some of my work to benefit Fandom Trumps Hate. The very lovely auction winner requested a HEA/hijacked Peeta/(sort of) enemies to lovers story. The story is heavy on angst, but there's healing that needs to be done before these two can find their way to each other. I hope I've done the Victors justice. They deserve it.

My trial is over. I only know because Haymitch is allowed to come see me, and he’s not alone. He enters gingerly, cautious and unsure due to my erratic behavior the past few weeks. I’m sure he’s seen it. I’m probably all over the news, and I wouldn’t put it past anyone to plaster the Mockingjay over the airwaves. Plutarch likely insisted on it.

“Hey, sweetheart. You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Haymitch says. It’d be better if he was tentative, but he’s brash in the way he always is. It grates on my nerves.

“I’m sure I’m a sight.” My laugh is mirthless, but he seems pleased at my snark. It’s better than being listless, I guess, but it doesn’t feel good. After all, I’m just a broken girl with no sister.

“I brought someone to see you. I thought it might help.”

Peeta enters the room, and I can’t breathe at the vision. His eyes are wary, but he approaches me without hesitation. Standing in front of me, he looks healthy, his wiry frame filled out again to the broad shoulders and stocky stature he wore back in District 12. Back before we were reaped and our lives destroyed by the Capitol. Never mind that they were always ruined.

“Hello, Katniss,” he says.

That familiar voice brings tears to my eyes. All the times he was the only one who could comfort me flash through my mind. I’ve missed him, I realize, and having him here in front of me reminds me of all I’ve lost. Peeta’s lost just as much. Haymitch has, as well. Mine is so immediate that it’s too hard to look past my own pain right now. Not when I’m still only yards from where she burned.

It’s ironic, really. I’m the girl on fire, not Prim. She was supposed to save lives. She shouldn’t have lost hers. None of it is fair. None of it’s right. It hits me again, and I fold into myself, too exhausted even to weep. Peeta catches me as my knees give way and carries me to the bed. He sits and pulls me into his arms, shushing and comforting me as my body shakes with dry, heaving sobs that wrack my thin frame.

“We’re going home,” he murmurs, his hands working through my hair, untangling the knots with his fingers.

I don’t trust his words, and it takes the better part of an hour for both men to convince me. My trial is over, and I’ve been cleared to return to District 12. There are limitations, though. I can only go home under the supervision of Haymitch. Peeta must be there, too, and all of Panem still believes the illusion that we’re in love. Maybe we are—at least as much as two fire mutts can be.

Progress is slow. It takes days to secure the right papers from Peeta’s treatment with Dr. Aurelius. I ask repeatedly if he feels strong enough to leave, but he just turns those blue eyes on me and shows me compassion. I can’t go until he does, and he understands how much I need to be where my memories with my sister are happier.

I try not to think about what District 12 looked like the last time I saw it. I don’t dwell on the charred bodies and twisted limbs that littered the scorched earth. If I do, I’ll go crazy. I don’t want to consider what Peeta will do when he sees it. Not when he’s still in such a fragile mental state. Haymitch will be with us, I remind myself. I won’t be alone. Peeta has healed, is healing, and he’ll break through the brainwashing as well as anyone can. He’s Peeta, after all, and I need him back the way he was before Snow ruined us.

When the day comes, the sun’s shining, which almost feels like sacrilege. The late winter air is frigid despite the light reflecting off the multi-levels of snow. I breathe in the cold air and allow it to sting my lungs. The icy burn brings tears to my eyes, and Peeta holds my hand as we board the train. He waves to the crowd, playing the role for both of us, and then follows me to my compartment.

His lips find mine before the wheels start moving. Being with him on the train, locked together and bringing each other consolation, is entirely too familiar to stop what happens. We come together, our bodies craving affection, and it’s the best thing either of us have experienced since reaping day for the Quarter Quell.

He’s hard inside me, and I draw him in deeper. I’m starved for attention, desperate for relief from all my loss. Peeta pants in my ear, and I moan for him. His hands are everywhere and caress my damaged skin. He kisses my neck and sucks the flesh into his mouth, biting and nipping until I’m mewling and begging for him to take me over the edge. He shouts my name, and it comes out hoarse and fractured, which is completely appropriate for us. The train whisks us out of the Capitol as he pours into me, emptying himself into my body.

The second time is slower and longer and more passionate. We wake in the middle of the night, reaching for each other in the dark, pushing away the nightmares and finding comfort the way we did so many times during our Victory Tour. His arms bring solace, but his mouth transcends me to another world. I don’t think I love him. I don’t know if I love anyone now that my sister’s gone. I do care about him. He matters to me, and I’m grateful for the respite.

Maybe that’s what lulls me into complacency. I should have been prepared, but he’d acted so much like himself since we’d reunited. Still, I know how ghastly the ruins of District 12 are. They were sickening when I saw them months ago. They haven’t improved with the passage of time.

Thankfully, Haymitch is with us when it happens. We pass through a tunnel and then out into the sunlight. Piles of rubble litter both sides of the tracks, and I see flashes of human remains. Turning away, I don’t witness his change. I miss the shock that shifts to fury. He’s on me before I know he’s gone mutt, and I can’t breathe.

“I hate you!” he screams, and I’m wrecked. “I hate you! You’re the reason this happened. You killed all of them.”

I can’t stop him. I’m not sure I want to anymore, so I close my eyes and allow the darkness to overwhelm me. I’m just about to slip under when Haymitch plunges a syringe in his neck, and Peeta slumps over me.

“Are you all right, sweetheart?” Haymitch asks. When I nod, he says wryly, “Can’t say that I blame him. I almost want to choke you for this, too, and I know it wasn’t you who did it.”

He rolls Peeta off me and settles him onto the bench. Then, he helps me up, and we watch the horrors flash by as the train speeds the rest of the way into the district, sliding to a stop at the depot. It’s only a few minutes, but Peeta’s just beginning to stir when the car doors slide open.

“Don’t tell me,” he mutters. “I already know.”

Haymitch and I only nod. Neither of us has the energy to do anything other than trudge off the train. There’s so little left of the town that it takes us a while to figure out where to go. We weave through the wreckage, covering our noses, retching at the stench, and leaning on each other. Tears stream down Peeta’s cheeks when he sees the burned-out shape of the ovens that were the heart of his family’s business.

I’m too hollowed out for anything other than muted revulsion. I can’t handle more than what I’m already bearing, so I stumble up the stairs and into my house in Victor’s Village. I don’t even bother to say goodbye to my companions. I simply glance over my shoulder and then shut the door behind me. I’m tempted to sink to the floor where I am, but I force myself to the sofa. I toe off my boots and toss them aside. Finally, I curl up on the couch and pull a blanket over my frame.

The house is too quiet and too empty. My sister should be here. She should be mixing herbs with my mother in the kitchen and chattering about how to heal others around her. She should be attending medical school and growing up and laughing and turning sixteen, but she never will. She’ll never be able to do any of it, and I have no one to blame but myself. If I had run faster. If I’d been a better leader. If I’d warned her of the trap. If Snow had died earlier. If I hadn’t become the Mockingjay. If, if, if! But none of those things happened, and my sister is dead.

I don’t want to think anymore, so I close my eyes. I don’t wake for 18 hours.

* * *

Peeta recovers slowly, just as I do. He vacillates between hating me and being the kind, compassionate person he always was before Snow and the Capitol got to him and hijacked him with the hopes he’d kill me. Haymitch and I keep a close watch and recognize the patterns over the days and weeks and months that follow. I worry that Peeta didn’t have enough time to get the medical attention he deserves because the Capitol forced him to escort me home and make sure I don’t go crazy. The absolute irony.

I’m reminded again that we’re the star-crossed lovers of District 12. He’s been forced to sacrifice himself for me over and over, and now, when I’m willing to admit he matters to me, he’s caught between himself and the mutt version who despises me. I wonder sometimes if this isn’t Snow’s final revenge—tying us so closely together that we aren’t good for each other. Instead, we’ll tear each other apart.

Peeta and I are in my kitchen when I choose to broach the subject. He’s baking, which he does at my house more often than his own, and I’m mesmerized by the way his muscles contract and flex while he kneads the dough. He’s wearing a plain white t-shirt and apron, and they accentuate his broad shoulders.

“Do you ever think about finding another therapist?”

He glances at me, his brow furrowed, and shakes his head. “What do you mean? Besides Dr. Aurelius?”

“Maybe in addition to? I just wonder sometimes if you’re paying my penance more than I am. You didn’t have a choice in bringing me back here. You gave up your own healing, and you deserve better.”

Peeta pushes his hair off his forehead with the back of his hand and considers me for several moments before forming his answer.

“Being home, especially here with you, is the closest thing I have to normal. Would you have allowed me near you if you weren’t forced to?”

I rear back, unsure how to answer. I really have no idea, and that’s much more unsettling than I thought it would be. We’re connected, but we don’t have to be anymore. Snow is gone. Coin is gone. The war is over. There will be no more Games. My sister’s deceased. His family is dead. There is no bakery. All of the things that have shaped our relationship aren’t pressing anymore, but does that mean I don’t want him around anyway?

We’re a team, aren’t we? Still a team, even when we no longer have to be. Otherwise, why would the Capitol have insisted he return to Twelve with me?

I decide to lighten the mood because being vulnerable makes me uncomfortable. I’m terrible at allowing others to observe my feelings, and that’s worked well enough for me for years that I elect to continue.

“I’ll allow it,” I reply, with a nod to that past conversation on a rooftop a hundred lifetimes ago. “If you keep me rolling in cheese buns.”

Peeta gapes at me, attempting to hide his amusement with over the top incredulity. “Did you just… _rolling_ in cheese buns? Was that a bread pun?”

“I knead you to ply me with carbs.”

“Well, now you’re just rising to the occasion,” he answers with a smirk, and I almost feel normal.

I’m struck with longing, and I hold out my hand. “Let’s go to the meadow when these are done.”

“The meadow?”

“There’s still a spot along the woods. Just a little bit there that’s hidden between the hill and the fence.”

He agrees and packs a lunch. We take a blanket and make an afternoon of it. We lie on our backs, holding hands and staring at the sky. We laugh and kiss and consider the clouds that morph into shapes Peeta insists remind him of Effie’s ever-changing hairstyles. He cracks jokes that seem inappropriate for the surroundings, but I’m thrilled to reclaim this place as something more than a graveyard.

“The thing is,” he teases, “this is what I always wanted growing up.”

“Getting to first base with a girl by an electric fence?”

He snorts and shakes his head. “Of course not. I mean, spending the day with you.”

“Peeta, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’ve spent a lot of days with me. Most of them have been terrible. You need a better wish list.”

“Oh, I don’t know. If you kiss me, this day might be perfect.”

“We’ve never done that before.”

“Not by this fence. Just think, it’ll be electrifying.”

I can’t help it. It’s so terrible that I burst out with laughter, and he chuckles low in his chest. Ashy blonde waves of hair fall over his forehead, and I brush it to the side. Our smiles match, and they’re genuine, if tentative. I’ve missed Peeta’s humor, which he’s hidden under his pain. I resolve to help him find some of that again. It might aid my healing just as much as it does his. Until then, I’ll allow the sunshine to melt away our worries. If we could, I’d freeze time and stay here forever.

* * *

The opportunity arises sooner than I expect. Tears turn to laughter occasionally, and we opt to preserve both. In the strain of keeping our time together productive, we revive the Plant Book and add a Book of Memory and, eventually, one of thankfulness. We memorialize our fallen and then force ourselves to find the humor and good in our everyday. I embarrass myself when my first entry involves the way the shadow of his eyelashes falls across his cheeks as he sketches, and he responds by giving me a tentative kiss.

It’s so tender, I almost weep. His lips sweep over mine with such gentleness and care. His breath is sweet against my skin, and he whimpers a needy sound when our mouths break apart. I’m sure he didn’t mean for it to, but it goes straight to my gut. I blink at him twice, and then I’m on him faster than he can see coming.

Frantic with need, I kiss him hard and moan into his mouth when he allows my tongue inside. Fire burns through us and coils between my legs. I want him inside me, and what we’re doing now doesn’t cut it.

I tear at his clothes and cover his neck and chest with open-mouthed kisses that leave glistening trails of saliva. It practically sizzles on his skin and evaporates into thin air. Terrified he’ll do the same, I grip him tighter and climb onto his lap. He’s hard when I grind against him, and it’s not long before he’s thrusting upward and moaning my name. He’s stiff and hot and eager and desperate, but I’m more so. I find a position that puts his cock against my clit and bear down. Jerking and writhing, I come from dry humping, and I have no regrets.

“Yes,” I groan into the sweaty skin of his neck.

I’m pliant against him, but I’m far from satisfied. One orgasm seems like a drop in the ocean. I want more. I need more. Every molecule of my body craves the way he makes me feel. When he suggests that I move, I shake my head. His hands should be on me. His cock should be inside me. I want him again now.

I wonder if I’ve said it out loud because he moves rapidly. I’m on my back on the table, and he’s working my pants off in seconds. I’m shaking, needy and quivering under his gaze. His eyes devour me as he spreads my legs open and…

I wail as he licks a stripe across my swollen lips. Peeta blows on the moisture between my legs, making me shiver and beg. He kneels before me, spreads me wide, and dives in with gusto. My eyes roll back in my head. My hands grip his hair. My hips roll. My mouth hangs open. My body betrays me as he feasts between my legs. He’s as skilled with his mouth as he is with his hands. He fucks me with his tongue and his fingers, sometimes at the same time, and my only disappointment is that I can’t ride his face when I’m lying beneath him. It feels so good, so unbelievably good, that I want it to go on forever.

He tugs me forward so my lower body hangs off the table, and he holds me aloft with his wide palms cradling the curve of my ass. He tips my hips upward and teases my clit with a small bite that makes me twist under him. He forces me to still, and my back bows. I climax with lusty cries that pour from deep inside me. I praise him and demand more until he rises from the floor and positions himself at the crux of my legs.

“Can you go again, sweetheart?” he growls and impales me on his rigid cock. “Can you? Or do you want me to use you? Fuck you senseless so you’re overwhelmed and not in charge? Which do you like better? Do you want power or persuasion?”

My legs wrap around his waist, and he slams into me hard. I can feel his muscles contract under my heels, and I dig in and buck against him. My arms are over my head, gripping the edge of the table, and I’m pleading for another release. My hair is wild, unkempt, and sweaty on the nape of my neck. I can’t think or wonder or consider anything except the way the blood sings in my veins as Peeta pumps in and out until I’m close again.

“Peeta, please,” I beg. “I need it. Need to forget. Help me.”

I howl when he slows, but he’s not done. He grapples with me and pulls out, leaving me bereft and empty. When I protest, he tugs me upright and tears my shirt from me. I’m left in only a sheer undershirt that shows taut nipples straining for his touch. He suckles one and then the other, leaving the cloth wet and me desperate for more.

“Stand up,” he orders, and I take in his glower. His eyes are so dark the pupils are almost navy. He’s dark and brooding, and I’m terrified for half a second that he’s about to slip into an episode. When he repeats his command in a deep, barked growl, I mind him as best I can on trembling legs. When I do, he twirls me around and bends me over the table. His arms tuck under my torso, between the gauzy fabric and my burning skin. He palms my breasts, squeezing and kneading, and shoves his thigh between my legs. I rear back against him, and he rubs between my cheeks against the slickness there. I’m panting for him. I want him back inside me, and he delivers.

It strikes me that this isn’t funny in the slightest. I meant to draw his humor from him, but he’s not laughing. He’s not soft or sweet. He’s hard and demanding, and it’s so incredibly hot to know he can push himself to this point and remain in control.

Except that our control is slipping. He’s hammering into me, and I’m powerless against him. He’s using me for his pleasure, but I’m getting plenty of it, too. The table creaks, and pens and charcoals roll to the floor. The notebook we’ve so carefully filled teeters on the edge before tumbling off in a flutter of pages.

Someone’s screaming, and I realize it’s me. I’m burning with pent-up desire, rutting against him as fluid drips down my legs. His sweaty skin slides against mine, and he thrusts up so he lifts me off the table before he retreats and I slam back down again.

I bite my lip, but it doesn’t help. My vision whites out as my body locks in suspended gratification. Peeta so deep it almost hurts, but I don’t want him anywhere but inside me. I can feel it coming. He can, too. It’s too much, but nothing will ever be enough.

There aren’t words for what happens. Nothing can explain the combustion of our bodies that both breaks us apart and then puts us back together. I’m fragmented and whole, desperate and sated, empty and full. All I know is Peeta, and that’s all I need. When he shifts to pull me into his arms, I go willingly. I’m asleep against his shoulder before he gets us in bed together.

* * *

That should have been it. Our relationship should have taken the next step at that point. Instead, Peeta’s episodes increase. He’s irrational and moody and angry more often than not. He usually stays with me, but he’s been away for three days when I finally give up and visit his home. I can hear him inside, but he won’t answer the door. I let myself in and follow the noise.

He’s painting. Yelling and crying and painting, and it breaks my heart. He’s always been talented, but the canvases in the room are stunning. They’re simultaneously gorgeous and horrific. He’s painted the Games. Again. Our first Games and then the Quarter Quell. Death and terror and loss is all there in his art. I recognize almost all the images, and I can practically feel the humidity of the jungle the same way I did when we were thirsty and desperate in the dark.

“Peeta?”

Spooked, he whirls to face me. His eyes are wild, crazed, and alarmed. His pupils dilate, and I back away. He’s dangerous. He’s not himself, or maybe he is. If Peeta hijacked is really him, then he’s exactly who he should be. What I know is that he doesn’t know me as Katniss—at least not the Katniss he cares about. At this moment, I’m the mutt. I’m the danger, and I have to get out of here.

I flee. My feet take me straight to Haymitch, who’s half-drunk and chasing his geese around the yard. If I wasn’t terrified, I’d laugh at his antics, but I need his help at the moment. He sees me coming, and the look on my face startles him to some semblance of sobriety. He thrusts me behind him and holds his hands out with palms up as Peeta approaches.

“Boy,” he snarls in his gravelly voice, “calm down. Not real.”

Tears prick at the corners of my eyes. I should have thought of that before running. That’s our special language. That’s how I’ve been able to convince him that his memories are authentic. To hear Haymitch using it… Peeta and I are the only two left of the Star Squad here in District 12, and it feels wrong for someone else to use it now that Finnick and all the others are gone. It feels like betrayal somehow. Rationally, I know it’s not practical. Haymitch is saving my life, and Peeta needs as many people as he can get to help him.

It takes a while, but Peeta eventually sags. Dropping to his knees, he weeps silently into his hands while I stroke his back. The three of us sit together, each of us worrying in our own way about how to help him.

“I’m sorry,” he groans, and it breaks my heart to hear his grief. “I don’t want to be the mutt anymore. I don’t want to hurt you, Katniss.”

I hold his hand and know I’m about to break my own heart. Peeta needs help, and no one here can give it to him.

“Haymitch, what are the details of my release? Does Peeta have to stay here, or was the requirement only that he accompany me here?”

They both stare at me, eyes red-rimmed and watery. They know I’m right, and neither wants it to be true. Peeta has to go. He’ll never be whole until he focuses on his own healing first.

“No,” Haymitch mutters. “There’s nothing that requires him to stay here now that you’re back. He can go. He _should_ go.”

“Can you make the call?” he asks. His voice wavers on the last word, and I intertwine my fingers with his.

“I’ll take care of it,” Haymitch answers gruffly. “You two go say your goodbyes. It’ll happen quickly once it’s set in motion. They won’t drag it out and let it become a story.”

Maybe I’m crazy. I certainly wouldn’t put it past me, but I lead him to my house and upstairs to the bedroom. It’s possible this could trigger him again, but I need him. If I have to be without his touch for weeks or months, I need the feel of his skin against mine at least one more time before he goes.

We set a punishing pace. We’re chasing demons as our skin slaps together. He lets me take charge, even offering to be restrained if I don’t feel safe. How can I not, though? It’s Peeta, not the weapon the Capitol created, and he’s the only one who’s ever helped me control my own fears. So after, when I’m floating like dandelion fluff in the breeze, he slips from my bed. When I wake the next morning, he’s already caught the train. I’m alone again in District 12.

* * *

It’s torture without him. I miss him every day, and I don’t miss anyone. That’s not true. I miss everyone—Prim especially, but also Finnick and Madge and all the others I’ve lost to death. Gale and my mom are just as absent to me. I haven’t talked to either of them. I don’t think I can and stay in control of myself. My mother I understand. She’s always been the type to avoid facing her pain, so living somewhere else is the best option for her. Gale, though… His absence makes little sense. He’s so much a part of the Seam, I can’t imagine how it will go forward without him, but we’re left with little choice. He’s not coming back.

District 12 is recovering little by little, just like I am. There are so many missing, but many of Gale’s mining friends make up the backbone of recovery. Thom must be sick of clearing the dead, carting the remains to the Meadow, and overseeing their disposal. It seems so impersonal to use that word. Human beings are not disposable, but we’ve been treated that way in the districts for far too long. Someday the Meadow will bloom lushly, fed by the bodies of those who fell when the Capitol determined punishing me was worth more than coal shipments and the hands that prepared them.

I drift listlessly for weeks after Peeta leaves, and I finally make my way the short distance to his house. He left quickly. Maybe I can tidy the place up or something. It’s almost nothing, but it’s more than I’ve been able to handle so far.

The house is hollow without him. There’s none of his warmth or vitality. Everything that makes being home bearable is gone without him here. I wander the rooms and run my fingers along the kitchen counters. He cleaned before he left. Of course, he did. The paintings are another matter, though. They lie where he left them. Some are finished. Some call out for his hand to wield his brush and complete the scene. All of them take me back to those terrible days when death stalked us and the audience cheered for our demise.

My hands itch to do something. If I can’t be with him, maybe I can get closer. I don’t want to touch the canvases, but they need to be moved. He can’t come back to them splayed out before him, sucking him back into the horror. I take in shallow breaths and repeat my mantra.

“My name is Katniss Everdeen. I’m eighteen years old. The Capitol wanted me dead, but I survived. Peeta is alive. I am alive. We won.”

My voice is quiet at first, warbly and trembling as I state my claims. Holding the paintings hurts, but I’m able to do it. One by one, I pick up Peeta’s work, study it, and stack it away. It helps somehow, and I wonder if I can now understand why Peeta does it—why he revisits the terror and purges it through brushstrokes and color. He’s always been braver than I have, but I haven’t appreciated exactly how much until I’m holding his recovery in my hands. No wonder he could withstand everything the Capitol’s done to him. He even managed to break the hijacking enough to accompany me home. I’m ready for it to be his turn now.

Haymitch is worried as the days pass. I’m not doing well on my own, but it all breaks when that miserable sack of bones slinks through the open kitchen window and takes me back in time. Buttercup is alive. I don’t know how, but he’s made his journey from District 13 all the way home, and his owner isn’t here to greet him.

I scream at that mangy cat, but he only cowers at my vitriol. It bruises my heart, which has already been shattered beyond repair. What must that beast have been through to pick his way over hundreds of miles to return home. It’s more than Gale’s done. More than my own mother. For no other reason, Buttercup should be treasured. I capture him in a vise grip and weep into his fur.

We fall into a rhythm. Sleeping on the couch. Curling together in despair. Lonely and ragged and wasting away. I feed him, but that’s about all I can manage. I haven’t bathed or eaten or cared for anything around my home. Buttercup gets all of me, and that’s as good as it gets until the light comes back.

I wake a few weeks later to the sound of something outside. Disoriented, I disentangle myself from the ball of fur and make my way to the front door. Peeta’s there. The sun shines on him. He smiles at me and gestures to the plants at his feet. They’re primroses, and he’s brought them here to me.

“You’re back.”

He nods. “They’re for her,” he announces softly, and I can feel life flood through me.

“I need the day.”

He doesn’t question it. He only turns back to his work and lets me have my time. I put myself back together and then tackle the house. I don’t want him to see how I fell apart without him, and I feel a twinge of empathy for how my mom reacted to my father’s loss. The difference is I had Buttercup and my mother had children. Not the same, but I realize my anger is immaterial. I don’t need her anymore. I have someone else, and I can do it without her.

Our reunion heals us both. Peeta and I find strength in each other every day, and we’re better together than we are apart. He moves in with me soon after so he can stay with me always. He doesn’t need his home anymore, so he converts it into the district’s new bakery.

He keeps the upstairs as a studio and paints through his pain. It only takes a few months before he’s able to shift his work to memorialize the good things instead of the bad. Images of the Seam and his family’s bakery emerge from white canvas, and he eventually accompanies me into the woods where he falls in love with the lake. It features in a series of paintings that are rimmed by the Everdeen girls. We’re there in paint as plants that border the artwork. Katniss and Primrose are woven together, memorialized by Peeta’s capable hands.

None of it is easy, and he heals faster than I do. It’s not a competition, though. We’ve both had enough of that. Instead, we’re partners, holding each other when it’s too much and giving space when needed. He still has flashbacks, and my nightmares never really go away. Still, we’re here, and that’s something on its own.

He’s with me when I see it, the first dandelion breaking through the crack in our sidewalk, and I realize this would have transpired no matter what. Nothing can keep us apart. Every path that brings us together is valid. Together or apart. Hijacked or stable. In an arena or the districts. It doesn’t matter. It happens any way we try.


End file.
